While several paradigms for judging debate have been thoroughly discussed, the view of the judge as a tabula rasa has received little treatment. The tabula rasa approach can take the form of a framework added onto a traditional judging framework, or it can take the view that making debate theory debatable is only one of several implications of tabula rasa judging. The tabula rasa approach is justifiable because it encourages sound debating and because it is consistent with the assumptions of debate. In general, a tabula rasa judge believes that debate theory is a debatable issue and that the judge should attempt to be neutral in a debate round. There are four issues beyond this general principle that divide tabula rasa judges into subgroups: whether or not there are any issues not debatable in a round, the amount of argumentation needed to support a theoretical position, what to do with the theoretical argument once it has been decided, and what to do in the absence of theoretical arguments. (TJ)